Time to publish ethically: DAFNEE, a database of academia-friendly journals in ecology and evolutionary biology.

Nicolas Galtier, Khalid Belkhir, Pierre-Olivier Antoine, Christine Bibal, Christophe Boëte, Frédéric Delsuc, Elise Huchard, Sonia Kefi, Charly Maeder, Laure Paradis, Sébastien Puechmaille, Alain Queffelec, Céline Scornavacca, Carole M Smadja

The scientific publishing market is dysfunctional: academia pays a lot for publishing, much more than the actual cost. Transitioning to ethical publishing is a collective challenge requiring to inform scientists about the problem and its potential solutions. We introduce DAFNEE, a database of academia-friendly journals in ecology and evolutionary biology (https://dafnee.isem-evolution.fr/). DAFNEE provides information on eco-evo journals (co)run by academic or non-profit institutions, aiming to retain the money used to pay for publishing within academia. DAFNEE records the business models, article processing charges, citation rates and partnerships of over 600 society-run, university-affiliated and diamond Open Access eco-evo-archaeo journals. We show that DAFNEE journals compare favourably to non-DAFNEE ones in terms of editorial and financial policy, while offering similar citation rates. We propose a number of recommendations aimed at modifying scientists' practices towards more ethical publishing.